Void
by Aneko Kohana
Summary: The peace is over, and from the ashes another One has risen. She is who will resurrect the past One. Although she didn't count on falling in love with him on the way to resurrecting his lover...


Disclaimer: The Anderson programs, Nova, Cady Allison, the Void, and their related people, not including Morpheus, Trinity, and Neo, are mine. Everything else belongs to the Wachowski brothers.  
  
Summary: The peace is over, and from the ashes another One has risen. She is who will resurrect the past One. Though she didn't count on falling in love with him on the way...  
  
SPOILER WARNING: "Reloaded" and "Revolutions" spoilers.  
  
FYI, it's 2003. This year, this time. Starts 11/15/03.  
  
Void  
  
Chapter One: Just One  
  
The alarm rang.  
  
Cady Allison was not in the mood to wake up, but she slapped it off and sleepily rolled out of bed. As the youngest computer programmer in Neoteric Investigations, a law firm solely for investigating illegal computer activity, she had a decided interest in being at work on time.  
  
At the young age of twenty-five, Cady was fresh out of law school and had earned a double doctorate-cyber law and computer programming, plus a Harvard law degree.  
  
She selected one of her five black business suits and a white blouse, brushed her brown hair and tied it back, slipped into a pair of black pumps, picked up her briefcase, and she was ready to go. Her car was your average businesswoman's-silver Lexus, with the only unique sign being the small Egyptian hieroglyphs painted onto a corner of the windshield. She had an identical tattoo on her right shoulder blade, not that anyone saw it when she wasn't wearing a bathing suit, which was rare. Cady didn't have the time for vacations.  
  
She was able to drive leisurely to work, as she had set her alarm to go off early. She swung through the drive-through at Dunkin' Donuts to get a bagel and a coffee for breakfast. Same as any other day. She munched on the bagel as she drove to the towering edifice of an office building, munching on her bagel as she drove, careful not to muss her lipstick.  
  
"Mornin', Miss Allison," the guard at the gate greeted as she showed him her security ID.  
  
She smiled and drove into her parking space, which was very far from the building, she being the rookie. The elevator seemed to take an age to get to the top level, as usual. She was drinking the last of her coffee as she slid into her chair and switched her computer on. She had two emails in her inbox. The first was from her boss. The second was from someone she didn't know. She read the one from her boss first.  
  
From: D.Gura@neoteric-inv.org  
  
To: C.Allison@neoteric-inv.org  
  
Subject: Local Virus  
  
Message: The state police's computer system's down with some kind of virus. Please investigate. There's a file attached with the history. Allison, you'll be working with a Ms. Carlson. She's been working with us for five years, and is quite experienced. Her file's attached to this email.  
  
Sincerely,  
  
Daniel Gura  
  
Cady tilted back in her chair and wheeled to the other side of her cubicle, where the files were printing. She read through the history first. Apparently the police department had been having problems with their records for two days before their system completely shut off, every computer freezing up. When they restarted the network, it completely destroyed the memory in every computer. She winced. Bad luck. Then she read through Carson's file. Normal enough.  
  
NAME: Alexandra Ashton Carlson  
  
DOB: 1/1/1973  
  
BIRTHPLACE: New York, NY  
  
CURRENT RESIDENCE: Alexandria, VA  
  
PHONE NUMBER: 703-815-2209  
  
PAST WORK:  
  
Subway, New York, NY, 1989-1990  
  
Olive Garden, Boston, 1990-1999  
  
Neoteric Investigations, Washington, D.C., 1999-  
  
EDUCATION:  
  
George Washington Elementary School (Elementary)  
  
Eleanor Roosevelt Junior High School (Middle)  
  
Albert Einstein High School (High)  
  
Rudy Giuliani University (College)  
  
Harvard University (Law)  
  
Criminal Record:  
  
Speeding Ticket (2000)  
  
Cady raised an approving eye. She seemed reliable enough. The picture showed an average young woman, black hair exactly Cady's length-about three inches past her shoulders. It curled at the ends, precisely like Cady's own.  
  
She filed the papers into folders (she rarely threw anything away) and opened the other email.  
  
From: void  
  
To: C.Allison@neoteric-inv.org  
  
Subject: none  
  
Message: Beware Anderson.  
  
Cady frowned. Normally she'd just delete an email like this-she got plenty of mail from hackers warning her off a case-but this was different. Usually they'd have some really bad subject line like, "READ THIS AND DIE!" She'd never yet seen a no-subject. And when they'd encrypted it so she couldn't read their email, it always said "n/a". The third thing was that they always had threats, i.e. "Stay off the case or I'm coming for you", although they never worked. She was not scared by them, because most of the time the people writing these threat letters were computer geeks who couldn't snap a pencil in two, let alone lift a gun and shoot a human being. And what kind of a message was "Beware Anderson"?  
  
She deleted the email.  
  
*~*~*  
  
The code of the Matrix is a complicated thing. Like any other computer network, no program inside it can never be completely deleted, only the image of it can, all access to it removed. It is then stored in some unexplainable, unreachable area of a computer nicknamed by the few computer programmers who know it as the Void.  
  
Anything that dies, is deleted, or is otherwise destroyed inside the Matrix is stored here. They are the code of the Matrix, and nothing else. Simple code, but still alive, still conscious, and code can be recovered and restored. Contact with those outside the Void is difficult, but possible.  
  
One did it.  
  
Just One. 


End file.
